The ASSISTments platform has been updated to include the latest Kendall Hunt/Illustrative Math: Version B assessments for grades 6-8.

The notion of a growth mindset may not be inherent to students. What should you be implementing right now in order to foster that with your math students? This post offers an answer.

Many people think only about quizzes and homework assignments when they hear “formative assessment,” but the 5-Step Formative Assessment Process is multifaceted. There’s so much more potential where both teacher and students play a crucial role for learning.

Chances are you’re probably already using formative assessment in class. When you assign homework, quizzes, or projects you’re hitting one part of a process proven to impact student learning. Learn about this flexible 5-part process. It helps ensure instruction response to student needs.

ASSISTments is looking for new or novice ASSISTments users to join our Virtual Professional Learning Community (PLC) during Spring 2021 (Jan - May)!

Get a sneak peek at the many tools and features within ASSISTments focused on improving and promoting various forms of feedback - and more currently in development.

Neil Heffernan and Cristina Heffernan, founders of ASSISTments, explain why ASSISTments forever-free accounts support students' math learning.

The latest ASSISTments product update adds the functionality to download Assignment Reports, upload scores to Google Classroom, and assign the teacher role to other teachers.

Is your homework helping students learn? Have you given up on homework because you think it has lost value? Veteran math teacher Andrew Burnett has finally found a way to make homework an effective learning opportunity for his students.

Due to the pandemic, teachers are grappling with how to support students with unfinished learning. This blog post consists of tried and true tips on how you can create differentiated learning opportunities for students with diverse academic needs.

Listen to this podcast where ASSISTments co-founder joins Michael Palmer to talk about how his career interweaves great teaching, computer science, and “ASSISTments” – a set of digital tools designed to make homework assignment and evaluation more efficient.

Watch ASSISTments co-founders Neil and Cristina Heffernan speak on adaptive tutors in Justin Reich's book club.

Diagnostic Assessments for Eureka Math developed by the Louisiana Department of Education now in ASSISTments (grades 4-8, Algebra I), plus update to Eureka Unit Assessments

Back in high school, Brian Story ended his Algebra course thinking that mistakes were bad and “I’m just not good at Algebra.” This experience led him to develop a growth mindset and made him a stronger educator.

Shift from a fixed mindset - where students are trained to wait for the teacher to provide them feedback on their individual learning - to a growth mindset, where students seize opportunities with immediate feedback and actionable data.

Get to know the newest teacher leaders from the ASSISTments community to become Ambassadors. They represent educators from across the country. These are their stories, from the classroom.

A Worcester Polytechnic Institute professor is spearheading innovative crowdsourcing research to help educators and students.

This middle school math teacher joins ASSISTments professional learning to get into her "blindspot," by seeing how other teachers are responding to the same challenges and setting the pace in their classrooms using the same flexible tool.

The ASSISTments platform is now updated to ensure our Illustrative Math assignments fully align to the most up to date version from Kendall Hunt.

An online math teaching tool developed at Worcester Polytechnic Institute has been used by thousands of teachers adjusting to distance learning during the pandemic.

Schools are in session within a classroom, completely online, or a hybrid of both. How do you keep up with the paradigm shift? What will it take to get ahead? Three teachers who joined our August webinar 'Getting the Best Start With Students and Families In Class and From a Distance' give their response.

Since the shift to distance learning began in March more than 25,000 teacher from all 50 states and internationally have signed up for ASSISTments accounts.

(Opportunity now closed) ASSISTments is seeking diverse 7th grade math teachers with experience using Engage NY and/or Eureka Math for a paid opportunity to support the development of two new features within our platform.

The impact of distance learning has not hit communities equitably. At a time when access to technology has become a must-have for learning to continue, there continues to be a digital divide along race, socioeconomic and geographic lines. Read more to find out how ASSISTments provides support for teachers.

Have you ever caught yourself wondering how much difference it would make for your students if you had more time to give thoughtful feedback? This is the second blog post in our series on Evidence-Based Instructional Practices that sheds light on teaching practices grounded in learning science.

ASSISTments holds a unique position in the edtech space due to our passion for learning science and the bridge we build between educators and researchers to drive advances in education research. This post delves into two of the key components of that bridge.

See how Andrew Burnett uses ASSISTments and the other tools in his edtech toolbox to enhance his instructional practice. Andrew Burnett is a 7th Grade Math Teacher in Newton, Massachusetts. He is an ASSISTments Ambassador who has been using the program as a tool for formative assessment in his classroom since 2008.

Cristina transitioned from her role as Chief Strategy Officer with The ASSISTments Project @ WPI, in July of 2020. She and her husband, Co-Founder, Neil Heffernan have been innovating and developing ASSISTments since 2003.

How relevant is homework anymore? We're reconsidering the new realities of today’s learning environments and how they can best serve student learning.

Adapted from NCTM 100 Days of Professional Learning talk on how QuickComments allows teachers to give feedback powered by AI.

Through this first post in our Evidence-Based Practice blog series, we aim to shed light on instructional practices grounded in learning science principles and research evidence that teachers can apply in class.

TeacherASSIST is an ASSISTments feature that leverages teacher crowdsourcing to amplify and support teaching and learning across all ASSISTments users. Read more about our work and research using crowdsourcing.

Neil Heffernan, professor at WPI, received the largest award in FY 2019 - $4.98 million to scale and expand ASSISTments over the next five years.

Read more about our work on using teacher crowdsourcing to improve student learning in this article by Jill Barshay in The Hechinger Report.

7th grade math teacher Thea Durling spent two years on the TeacherASSIST project, developing hints and exemplars to support other ASSISTments users in providing personalized feedback to students

In middle school, concepts start to build on each other to form new, complex material. This North Carolina teacher describes how ASSISTments supports her teaching practice to differentiate and scaffold complex material.

A message from Neil Heffernan, introducing a new nonprofit, The ASSISTments Foundation! Building the foundation is an essential step in growing ASSISTments and impacting more students and teachers.

Benchmark tests allow teachers to see what students have learned at the end of turning point of a unit.

When faced with a wrong answer, how do you respond? Learn how Barbara Delaney teaches her students how to respond to wrong answers to inform their learning.

How can EdTech tools be used to help teachers make the most of limited classroom time? Former teacher and ASSISTments team member Cindy Starks weighs in with her best recommendations.

In this study, we put the ASSISTments platform to the test to understand the impact of artificial intelligence in education for web-based homework in comparison to traditional homework. We found that students learned reliably more in the web-based homework condition, even without the benefits of additional tutoring features such as hints and feedback messages.

ASSISTments was developed by husband and wife duo Neil and Cristina Heffernan.As a professor of computer science and learning technologies, Neil is able to collaborate with fellow professors, researchers and PhD students to enhance the ASSISTments platform. As a former middle school math teacher Cristina keeps the project focused on teachers.

Dr. Botelho is a research scientist with the ASSISTments lab. Before his PhD, Anthony completed his undergraduate in Interactive Media at Becker College and his Masters in Computer Science at WPI.

Ashish is a PhD student in Computer Science

Brian Story is an ASSISTments Teacher Engagement Manager in North Carolina. Learn more about Brian!

Cindy is excited to be on the team because it will allows to "have a positive impact on math teaching and learning while also learning about best teaching practices and working with ASSISTments."

Donna Lee Tignor is a long-time ASSISTments teacher mentor. Read how she started with ASSISTments!

Megan will work alongside Neil & Cristina Heffernan in the leadership of the organization to help us spread ASSISTments across the US. We are looking forward to Megan's non-profit leadership experience as well as her ability to help us grow and scale ASSISTments.

Dr. Sarah Irish has been involved with ASSISTments since the Maine Replication Study! Learn about Sarah's experience as an ASSISTments user and teacher mentor.

As a Project Coordinator, JA arranges the content building for all the curricula on ASSISTments! Read more about JA's background and passion for education.

John Erickson is a PhD student in Data Science at Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Dr. Ostrow is a Research Scientist at Worcester Polytechnic Institute

March is the senior PhD student in the ASSISTments lab! March is passionate about machine learning and AI, and serves as a supervisor to his fellow PhD students.

Meet Meghana, a Masters student who works in the ASSISTments lab!

‍A study conducted at MIT's Poverty Action Lab was recently featured in the U.S. News & World Report concluded that ASSISTments is one of two promising educational technologies in the US. The study praised ASSISTments for its impact on student learning and the tool’s compatibility with schools’ existing curricula and textbooks.

SRI International ran an independent study on the efficacy of ASSISTments. This study allowed ASSISTments to meet the highest What Works Clearinghouse standard for “positive effect without reservations” and to receive a Tier 1 rating by Evidence for ESSA. The study showed that with the use of ASSISTments supported student learning as a whole and helped close achievement gaps.

This study explores the ability of an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) to increase parental engagement in student learning. A parental notification feature was developed for the web-based ASSISTments ITS that allows parents to log into their own accounts and access detailed data about their students’ performance. This research investigates the impacts of parental involvement on student learning outcomes.

We ran a randomized controlled trial on two ASSISTments features: Skill Builders and Automatic Reassessment and Relearning System (ARRS). Skill Builders allows teachers to assign individual skills practice sets and ARRS automatically reassesses students on these skills. Our study showed greater performance on those skills that were reassessed and relearned.

ASSISTments features can help promote data conversations between teachers and students and bolster the shift toward students owning and acting on their own data.‍

The Symbols of Success are a powerful tool that can allow students to track their own progress through immediate feedback. Hints and wrong answers can guide students toward the correct answer. Help your students transition from a focus on “right or wrong” to a focus on the learning journey!

We asked teachers: what recommendations do you have for teachers introducing ASSISTments into the classroom? Read on for middle school math teacher Ms. Ivory Cutri’s tips and tricks!

We asked teachers: what recommendations do you have for teachers introducing ASSISTments into the classroom? Read on for middle school math teacher Mr. Josh McMillen and Ms. Katie McCrary’s tips and tricks! 

When introducing ASSISTments, teachers can show students how to use the tool to inform their learning, focusing on owning their progress rather than a grade.

Are you ready to get started using the ASSISTments in your classroom? Before diving in, it can be helpful to try out our Practice Set to help your class get acclimated to the platform. The practice set is designed to help students explore problem types and progress reports they will encounter using ASSISTments. Happy practicing!

Completing homework assignments allows students to practice their skills—and then receive feedback on their work from teachers. Based on student homework, teachers can assess how each student is performing independently outside of the context of the classroom. Teachers can make the most of Common Wrong Answers to support students during homework review sessions.

It is important that educators know which interventions and products actually work. In order to accomplish that goal, the U.S. Department of Education hosts the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC), an institution that evaluates educational interventions to see which work and which are simply flops. Neil Heffernan provides an update about the WWC’s approval of a study that shows the efficacy of ASSISTments.

2019 Video Competition. Students, share how ASSISTments helps you learn.

Over 2800 students from 43 schools from Maine participated in a year long study. 75% of students improved, find out how we affected them in a positive way.

“We had the guts to expose ourselves” to randomized control trials, says ASSISTments founder Neil Heffernan in this US News & World Report article

The Boston Globe profiles ASSISTments founder Neil Heffernan, who tells the story of his experience as a middle school math teacher and how a brain tumor inspired him to start ASSISTments.

Listen in to Neil Heffernan on wbur radio show Here & Now.

Two grants from the Institute for Educational Sciences (IES) totaling over $7 million have been awarded to education researchers studying the impact of ASSISTments. Large and rigorous randomized controlled trials of online education tools for K-12 education are difficult to conduct and analyze. These grants will build upon a prior ASSISTments trial conducted by SRI Education, which was important in that it provided hard, comparative evidence of the impact of education technology.

Podcast interview with ASSISTments co-founders Neil and Cristina Heffernan about their inspiration for ASSISTments, their dedication to research-backed impact and what’s next for the online platform.

There’s no doubt that education technology can make a big difference in the classroom. But the facts show that the key to closing the achievement gap is not providing more technology to students, but rather putting the right ed tech into the hands of teachers.

In the United States, there is an ongoing debate about whether homework is worthwhile, with critics saying that it’s busywork at best and, at worst, it’s detrimental to student learning. Only, the problem isn’t homework itself but how homework is done. Instead of implementing “no homework” policies, WPI professor and ASSISTments founder Neil Heffernan proposes that we can and should use technology to improve how students do their homework — or at least their math homework.‍

Middle school math classes have worked in much the same way for decades. Teachers send students home with a textbook and a set of problems. Students work out the solutions on paper and bring the answers in the next day. That changed at about 40 Maine schools, where students, mostly seventh-graders, tested out ASSISTments.

A veteran math teacher puts ASSISTments to the test and reports on how second-year algebra students learn to persevere in completing homework assignments through the use of the online homework platform. She showcases the tool’s ability to deliver instant feedback and embed video explanations in problem sets.

ASSISTments serves as a unique shared scientific instrument in the social science world, continuing the forward push to do more randomized controlled experiments. Social science can reap the benefits of our cultural shift to the digital world and the many ways people interact with online platforms.

Researchers are using tools borrowed from medicine and economics to figure out what works best in the classroom. Much of the new research goes beyond the simple metric of standardized tests to study learning in progress and the findings are beginning to fill in some blanks in that hugely complex puzzle called education.

Results of a randomized control trial conducted by SRI Educational Research in public schools in Maine and published in the journal AERA Open by the American Education Research Association clearly quantify the benefits of ASSISTments.‍ The study shows that ASSISTments is effective in helping close the learning gap.

The New York Times profiles husband and wife team, Neil and Cristina Heffernan, and how they chose to address the achievement gap through a computer program that can mimic the individualized feedback of a human tutor.‍

Read about the impact ASSISTmennts is having in two schools in Walpole, Massachusetts. Students whose teachers use the software say it’s like taking their teacher home with them.

The What Works Clearinghouse, a highly regarded federal research review of education products, has reviewed the ASSISTments research and stated that the Efficacy Study “meets standards without reservations.”

A veteran math teacher puts ASSISTments to the test and reports on how second-year algebra students learn to persevere in completing homework assignments through the use of the online homework platform. She showcases the tool’s ability to deliver instant feedback and embed video explanations in problem sets.

Students are often told to push themselves to the limit in the math classroom. But is this persistence always the most productive way for students to learn? ASSISTments founder Neil Heffernan weighs in about how students can move past spinning their wheels and start mastering math content.

Protecting student privacy is our top priority. At ASSISTments, we know that our students, parents, and schools have a clear and important right to their own data. Read on to learn how we protect our students' data.

While many EdTech tools and solutions might show promising results in small studies or certain conditions, very few prove effective at scale. That is not the case with ASSISTments. Led by Worcester Polytechnic Institute Professor Neil Heffernan, the free classroom assessment software has been shown to bring about remarkable academic gains. Read on to learn the story of how ASSISTments came to be and some of the challenges along the way.‍

ASSISTments Ambassador Andrew Burnett was in his 15th year of teaching when he was asked to join the ASSISTments team. His task was to help conduct a long-term educational study by training and supporting the teachers that were participating in an independent research project. Andrew communicated with 70 teachers all around the Northeast about implementing ASSISTments in their classrooms. Read on to learn Andrew's story and how he has transformed his teaching practices.

How much, if any, homework should elementary school students receive? It is an age-old and ongoing debate. But the discussion misses a fundamental part of the controversy: Teachers often don’t take advantage of homework as an instructional tool. Neil Heffernan weighs in about how homework can be utilized best to enhance student learning.

Students all bring their distinct educational needs and styles into the classroom. Many teachers work hard to find a balance between supporting individual students and addressing the needs of the whole class. Teachers are tasked with educating classes of students with a wide range of abilities, needs and challenges. Read on to learn how teachers can leverage edtech tools to support all types of learners in the classroom.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), in partnership with The ASSISTments Foundation, has been awarded an $8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Education Innovation and Research (EIR) Program.

The ASSISTments Foundation welcomes Britt Neuhaus will oversee our efforts to scale the ASSISTments online learning tool across the country, with particular attention to rural areas in collaboration with our partners at Lesley University, WestEd and WPI.

The use of technology is growing in schools, but we’re missing critical opportunities if technology isn’t being used to close the pernicious achievement gaps between students of color and their white peers and between low-income students and their more affluent peers. WPI professor and ASSISTments founder Neil Heffernan weighs in on the importance of using tech tools to address inequity in schools.

School districts around the country are doing away with homework, according to the latest education headlines. But research clearly shows that the solution to homework isn’t to abolish it. WPI professor and ASSISTments founder Neil Heffernan weighs in on why we need to make homework as effective and relevant as possible, so students can still learn when their teachers or family aren’t available to help them.

Teachers will tell you that class pacing is quite the balancing act! Because of its flexible design, ASSISTments can support you in your teaching practice— whether that be through warm-ups, homework review or whatever is working in your classroom!

The ASSISTments Foundation welcomes Tom Bolton as Vice President of Product to lead the future of the ASSISTments product. Bolton will support ASSISTments in its work to impact users across the country by delivering immediate feedback for math students and data insights for teacher instruction.

(Opportunity now closed) We are looking for ASSISTments users to help us design a new professional learning community experience! You will be compensated with $500 for lending your leadership and expertise to helping us develop this PLC.

We at ASSISTments are concerned about the impact that COVID-19 is having on teaching and learning and are taking steps to support our community of users and team at this time.

In the shift to distance learning, teachers and students are really putting online learning tools to the test. We’ve been hearing from teachers from across the country about stories from their classroom, and their worries and concerns.

Heffernan has received more than $35 million in federal grants for his work in learning sciences and with ASSISTments, in part because he is relentless in pursuing funding from a number of agencies, though he says he “tries more and fails more” in submitting grant applications. Last year ASSISTments was used by more than 2,500 teaches in 46 states and 14 countries.